January 20, 2017

Less than two weeks after Verizon increased its upgrade fee from $20 to $30, AT&T has confirmed that its upgrade fee and its activation fee will rise from $20 to $25 each. The fees apply to new customers when they activate a smartphone, or to existing customers when they upgrade to a new smartphone. This marks the second time in just nine months that AT&T has increased these fees,seizing the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of its top rival, Verizon, which also just increased its upgrade fee for the second time since last April.

Activation / Upgrade fees are arbitrary. Raising them is an obvious money grab by the carriers. I doubt that the cost of the phone talking to the network and the network robot verifying and connecting the phone has gone up at all in the last few years, much less by $10.